When Winston Smith gets to the final punishment, he is placed in room 101. This is a room of extreme punishment, punishment through your greatest fear. Known as "the worst thing in the world". Winston finds himself faced with his worst fear, mice, and collapses, losing the only thing he still loves and which has now been taken away from him, Julia. This ending is not a happy one and you wouldn't wish anything on Winston's life. Yet there is optimism? To a certain extent yes. As Winston loses his identity and beliefs, it gives hope and optimism. Not to Winston but to the audience. For readers of 1984, George Orwell, the author of this political novel, wrote this novel to inform and with this sad ending he did so. Big Brother and the party have control over everything, they control families, they control language, they control the media and even control history. This creates full control over a person's every act, thought and belief. Consequently with Winston this is done, thus Orwell's point is made. The purpose of this novel is to teach the reader, because during Orwell's life he experienced many things that inspired him for this novel, which makes you think that it is possible for a world like the one Winston lives in. Orwell's inspiration came from leaders such as when the Bolsheviks took control of the Russian Revolution. Also experiencing European fascism, under Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy. Yet, even though many years have passed since the days of any totalitarian government, the book is still very relevant to today's society. The relevance to many different eras in history calls into question whether the future is capable of such a place. Almost 60 years after its first publication these questions are still being asked. This would be due to many factors, such as the fact that technology is growing so rapidly that the public is afraid of being able to watch people, to the extent that it occurs in 1984. People would also argue yes, very often there is also a CCTV camera at every corner of the city and in the railway stations and those are only the cameras we can see. 1984 brings up these frightening possibilities, and if the ending of this novel didn't end this way it would create such paranoia.